But that's not the point. K's teaching is tremendously sacrosanct. We just have to seize the opportunity & make use of it. Not just mull over somethings we consider as inconsistencies & waste our time. There can be enough I think. I think it's not that K was a hypocrite but all that is possible living the teachings. Our conditioning makes it dubious for us.

Ken D wrote:Apparently, we prefer our own superstitions to somebody else's. They seem more legitimate because they're a part of our own take on things.

K was so crystal clear discussing nonsense others believe in: rituals, the coercive effects of organized religion, gurus, a God that is really just a projection of your own thoughts, nationalism, etc... He didn't hesitate to dismiss so many things that some take so seriously.

Yet how should we take his being sure to come home before dark, his drawing circles around where he was staying, and so on? Did he clearly see the superstitions of others but not his own? Because most people in the world can see problems with other religions. But not their own!

There are a number of other things in Mary Z's book. I only mentioned a few. Does anyone want to discuss any other things K did and said? I only jotted down some that struck me as I was reading.

To me, one of the very most important K teachings is "investigate for yourself." This means not to take what he said as sacrosanct but to question it and really go into it.

Now clearly many here have done just that and discovered, "Why, yes! It is exactly so, just as K says." But that doesn't mean they should turn around and deny the questioning of the next person. Quite the opposite. If something is really true, it will stand true.

Now we're looking at some interesting things in Mary Z's book. I realize that some of them may disturb people but that won't make them not be in her book. K asked her to carefully and honestly report what happened in diary form so there would be a record. She very likely honestly wrote down what happened. I'm sorry if that is inconvenient or disturbing. But it is what it is.

There is nothing about this information of K's strange behaviour that changes the facts K points to. The facts are immovable. They are earthquake proof. They cannot be tampered with.

Nonetheless, isn't superstition muddied disordered thinking, irrational thought? It is not necessary to deny, rationalize or excuse it, just as it is not necessary to dwell on it. Why not simply acknowledge that it is incongruous in light of K's clear, rational, sane thinking. It contradicts what he himself said about superstition, for example:

True education is to learn how to think, not what to think. If you know how to think, if you really have that capacity, then you are a free human being—free of dogmas, superstitions, ceremonies—and therefore you can find out what religion is.

—Think on These Things

So why name it superstitious at all ?

It's not that we don't understand it is superstious !

I don't understand why in some circumstances my laying on of hands on someone with pain ease their pain, but it does. It helped my mother for days, she had rheumatism, it worked with my kids when they had headache and on other people too.
And it's very clear to me it stops the moment I think "I do something" to them.
By the way it doesn't work on myself !

I cannot explain it , I don't understand it and I always offer it as a gift.

You can explain it away, don't belief it or take me not serious,
but it doesn't take away the fact that it works and is what it is.

Truth will unfold itself for those who enquire their own actions and only to them and for them and to or for no one else.

Jayaraj Kapila Kulasinghe wrote:We can't just dismiss some of these things as superstition.

Why should we accept them as being true?

Fortunately there is something called science. With experiment, we can try to verify.

The human body, as you know, is very complex. All kinds of things are at work in it. If you catch a cold, you will generally heal up in about a week. This tends to happen whether or not someone waves their hands around. So often, healing just naturally occurs.

In addition, the placebo effect is quite powerful. When people think something is happening to make them better, often they get better.

On the other hand, there have been studies where people knew they were being prayed for. They got worse! That doesn't stop people who believe in prayer from continuing to do it.

The scientist neither accepts something as true because it appears to be, nor dismisses it. The scientist carefully tests. And that's why, when you flip the switch, the lamp turns on. Waving your hands around is purely optional.

You have brought up the question of spiritual healing. As you know, K did such healing in private. He did so quietly. He evidently didn't want hordes coming to him for healing. Was this superstition on K's part or was he doing something real that we just don't understand? I don't know.

As I recall, he also personally received some scientifically questionable treatments for some health issue. Something with magnets or electricity? I can't remember. It's in one of the biographies. As I recall, it was not effective.

Then there is the question of telepathy.

Mary Zimbalist wrote:

She [Mary Links] had questions on his occult powers not dealt with in the biography. Krishnaji described it as a faculty he could have but doesn’t choose to use. “Like reading other people’s private letters.”

To me, it is worth questioning if these things are real or not, and if they say anything about Krishnamurti. Perhaps you must decide for yourself how skeptical you are. If K teaching has had a powerful impact on your life, does that make you more inclined to accept some of these oddities that might seem silly or superstitious in someone else? In other words, if you are deeply invested in K, does that affect how you feel about some of these matters?

Didn’t K himself challenge everything that is taken to be sacrosanct? Didn't K himself encourage us to question, doubt and challenge everything?

In fact, idiot was not being aggressive or disrespectful. She or he questioned some apparent contradictions, incongruencies, puzzling behaviours. Both you Jayaraj, and she/he idiot, are making it about K. That to me is a mistake. That is staying on the surface of our minds, on the superficial tip of the iceberg that is consciousness.

What really matters? Deciding what’s right or wrong, taking a stand based on conviction, judging, condemning, praising, coming to an agreement, and so on? What insight or understanding is there in agreeing with each other? Isn’t all such activity part of the pattern, the stream of consciousness, conditioning, we have been talking about? Isn't THAT what it matters to understand?

idiot ? wrote:There are a number of other things in Mary Z's book. I only mentioned a few. Does anyone want to discuss any other things K did and said? I only jotted down some that struck me as I was reading.

I'm not saying you shouldn't pursue that. It's obviously up to you. Does it mean that you are putting awareness and observation "on hold"? That K's behaviour is so outrageous that you don't see the necessity for understanding the mind?

I would be still be interested in your take on what I previously asked you:

Huguette . wrote:Can you show me the necessity for further investigation? And what do you mean by “investigate”? Read more books, watch more videos about K to see if there’s more information there? Talk about it, analyze it, measure it, exchange ideas about it? Is there anything more we can unearth that can explain this strange behaviour, or that can invalidate what K pointed to? Isn’t it there before us as it is - incongruous, puzzling, creepy, disturbing? Isn’t it clear as it is?

H: There is nothing about this information of K's strange behaviour that changes the facts K points to.

T: Right.

Huguette . wrote:Nonetheless, isn't superstition muddied disordered thinking, irrational thought? It is not necessary to deny, rationalize or excuse it, just as it is not necessary to dwell on it. Why not simply acknowledge that it is incongruous in light of K's clear, rational, sane thinking

Sure...it's incongruous. But my second sentence after the one quoted above was "How does that impact me and my life? " It doesn't change the fact that I am in conflict or afraid or depressed one iota to dwell upon K's apparent superstitiousness. It was his life. If he was alive and a close friend, I might ask him, but since he's gone, all I can do is speculate, which is meaningless. It's my own living that needs to be understood, not K's. It might be entertaining to gossip about it, but it doesn't help me to understand myself, right?

Were K's superstitions based on evidence or reason? Maybe. Was it based on belief? I don't know.

I don't see that it falls into the same category as laying hands on someone. It is clear to me that when someone is in distress, a hand on the shoulder can soothe. It is clear that a hand on an aching head, my own usually, brings relief. There is warmth and energy coming through the hand. There is no man-made material than has the same combination of texture, warmth and energy.

Tom Paine wrote:It was his life. [...] It's my own living that needs to be understood, not K's.

It was his life, just as Hitler's life was his life. But you would not listen to Hitler's insights, would you?

The gurus and preachers who amass gold also spout some insightful sounding words. So the character of the man or woman does matter.
Nonetheless, upon investigation, the insightful sounding words of the gurus and preachers who amass gold are not solid and immovable, as I see it. And as we both see it and say, it is the immovability of what K points to which matters. He points it out and we can see it is so. There is no question of believing it but of seeing it.

Idiot, this crusade you are on could be a valuable learning experience for you. Do you see that you had an image of K going into your quest to dig into what others have said about K? After reading certain second and third hand quotes about K taken out of context you developed another image which conflicts with the first one you had. What you write is confused and subjective. You have a point you want to make and you are building a case for it. You seem obsessed with K and not at all interested in what he pointed out.

Start simply. You can see, can't you, that we are all conditioned by our social traditions, religious beliefs, what your parents told us, what our teachers told us which is all part of what each person's particular society generally accepts as a valid view of the world. None of the views are the way the world is it's just that the majority of people accept the view and it becomes the officially accepted view of that particular society or culture. Understanding that these views have formed a prison within which we are all caught and that all of our reactions or rejections are all still within the prison of our conditioning.

Without first understanding the conditioning that has shaped our lives everything else we learn, accept or reject is all part of that conditioning and limited by that conditioning. You must see that what you think you are doing, objective searching for facts, is in fact nonsense.

Instead of examining who you think K was why not examine yourself? K is dead. We all need to find out about ourselves, who we are and how we got this way, if things in this wholly corrupt world are going to change at all.

For those of you suddenly compassionate for me, who wish for me to look at myself, as if I hadn't, I have to say it's kind of amusing. Let's say you're right that any concern about K's superstitions is trivial. Great. Then go start threads about the really important K teachings. We can discuss those, too. On other threads, I have posted at length about meditation, for example, which is extremely important. I've also posted about all kinds of other essential parts of K teaching.

Here in this thread, we're looking at some of K's apparent superstitions, whether or not they are valid, and so on. We've had lots of good discussion with about 50 posts so far. It's nice that there are differing viewpoints.

Were K's superstitions important or trivial? That's part of the discussion.

Must we only talk about the most important matters? Can we not discuss the important AND the less important? Perhaps something that seems small leads to something larger?

It's not like we're off on some tangent unrelated to K. We're discussing K's superstitions. If you wish, please continue talking about these apparent superstitions here, whether you agree with me or not. Also, start threads about important stuff if you want. Thank you.

Huguette . wrote:I don't see that it falls into the same category as laying hands on someone.

that is perfectly understandable

Huguette . wrote:It is clear to me that when someone is in distress, a hand on the shoulder can soothe. It is clear that a hand on an aching head, my own usually, brings relief. There is warmth and energy coming through the hand. There is no man-made material than has the same combination of texture, warmth and energy.

I'm sure this was/is much more than your explanation c.q. suggestion, and everyone is free to trivialize it and I'm certainly not going to convince anyone.

I'm convinced that not everything can be reasoned or proven and it is too easy to dismiss it as superstition.

Truth will unfold itself for those who enquire their own actions and only to them and for them and to or for no one else.

Jayaraj Kapila Kulasinghe wrote:But studying K I have lost fear. I don't have ecstasy or bliss but I have peace most of the time.That happened studying K.I have found everything K said to be valid.

Jayaraj,

Is personal experience proof of the validity of what K said? For example, someone who joins a cult may, at least initially, say that their cult leader has shown them the way to peace and happiness. Also, experience is routinely used a justification for racism and other sorts of discrimination and brutality, isn’t it?

When I say that what K said is valid, immovable, I’m not talking about the imagery of experience. I’m not talking about the results of following K.

I’m not against finding peace but by “valid, immovable”, I refer to the many things he said about workings of the mind - like this, for example, from that QOTD: “A mind that would understand time and continuity must be indifferent to time and not seek to fill that space which you call time with amusement, with worship, with noise, with reading, with going to the film, by every means that you are doing now.” This can be seen directly and only direct perception makes it meaningful.

I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m not saying I’m right. Just talking things over with you.

No, I am not saying to accept anything. I only said we cannot simply say these are superstitions.

My main point is this. I feel it may be a futile exercise dwelling on these things you bring out on K.

We have the teachings. The teachings have enormous depth. It can certainly help the suffering man. I feel it can solve all the problems in the world if man in general goes in to it. Economically too. K said 'Sirs, you are maintaining this world this way'.(words to that effect)

Some of these things you bring up as superstitions may only be possible to understand as we go into the teachings, into the depths of our consciousness. I mean these may be somethings the human being perceives with higher sensitivity, with a different, quieter mind.

K talked about a sacred. Beyond emptiness, beyond energy etc.(Ending of Time & other talks). It doesn't make sense to say that is superstition without starting from scratch, without beginning with ourselves, with our disorder.

Jayaraj Kapila Kulasinghe wrote:>How else to find out the validity of the teachings?
Teachings are not about K. It is about our life. Each one of us has to discover the truths , the facts about the consciousness by ourselves, isn't It?

To find out the validity or truth of what K points to, what he points to must be perceived directly. I cannot say, I have understood and I own that understanding. The understanding is not an experience that is remembered. It must be seen afresh in each moment.

Perception is not time. Experience is time, as I see it. Experience says, "I have seen, and now I know" - which is time, accumulated knowledge. Perception sees, but does not turn that perception into truth. If I turn perception into truth, it becomes knowledge, experience.

Yes, each one of us has to discover the truths about the mind for himself. But one cannot say, "I have seen, I have arrived and I know I have arrived because I'm at peace." And I cannot begrude someone who questions what may seem clear to me, what I understand.

Again:

A mind that would understand time and continuity must be indifferent to time

Wim Opdam wrote:I'm sure this was/is much more than your explanation c.q. suggestion, and everyone is free to trivialize it and I'm certainly not going to convince anyone.

I think you misunderstood me. I'm not trivializing it. I'm saying that if a compassionate hand can comfort a stranger, if the warmth etc. of a parent's body can calm a child or lessen his pain, and so on, it is conceivable that the laying on of hands might lessen pain.

Huguette . wrote:
Perception sees, but does not turn that perception into truth. If I turn perception into truth, it becomes knowledge, experience.

Jayaraj Kapila Kulasinghe wrote:What do you mean here? Did you mean to type memory & typed truth there? If not what does it mean?

I mean something like this: one minute ago, or a week or a year ago, there was an insight, a perception. And a minute, a week or a year later, the intellect remembers it and thinks, "I have perceived the truth of that, and now I still perceive the truth of it". Whereas now it is only memory, not perception. Now it is experience. The intellect - not understanding the nature of self - has turned the memory into "perception", thinks the memory IS perception. It is not perception itself doing this, but the intellect mistaking the remembered perception for truth. So there is now no perception, no understanding. Only experience.

idiot ? wrote:For those of you suddenly compassionate for me, who wish for me to look at myself, as if I hadn't

Have you? You put it in the past. You're not looking anymore is what you're implying. And it's not about you personally or sudden compassion. Knowledge conditions. We need technical knowledge in order to do all the things we need to do to live. The problem is psychological knowledge. The knowledge that conditions us psychologically and stifles understanding of who we are from moment to moment.

Have you decided to pursue this quixotic quest to uncover the "real" K because you feel you have failed at understanding what the man pointed out? You know it's not a question of succeeding or failing but just watching, being aware of your thoughts. But with the acquisition and accumulation of knowledge, whether correct or not, is just conditioning your mind making it so much more difficult to see yourself. Are you aware of why you have set out on this quest? Is it so you can be someone? The person who exposed the "real" Krishnamurti?

It seems to me that you’re doing the same thing as idiot by focusing on another's behaviour, as he/she is doing. Am I mistaken? I don’t want to make you angry but to speak frankly just as you are speaking frankly. As I see it, this is too important to pussyfoot around. Being frank does not mean to blindly attack each other out of anger, out of conditioning, the very thing we are intersted in learning about. We’re all interested in self-understanding, I think. And, ultimately, to understand we must face our inner self.

Where anger (or fear, etc.) is triggered by someone else’s behaviour, it is still the inner anger I must face in order to understand the human being.

“The past you’ve lived” is erased by life itself, as I see it. Artifacts and accounts of it may remain, but they are not the actual past. The past itself no longer exists.

The only past there is IS the past we remember. The issue is not whether to erase, deny, suppress, repress, rewrite or revise the past but to understand it. There is the need to understand it - not historically, cynically, analytically, not to condemn, justify it or commemorate it, but to understand the mental processes and nature of the past. To see that knowledge conditions the mind is not to disconnect from the past. To observe the mind which holds the past is not to disconnect from the past. No?

According to Mary Zimbalist, K drew circles around places where he stayed for protection. I think this was true for both temporary sojourns like hotel rooms and for more permanent abodes like Arya Vihara in Ojai.

Is this a teaching? As someone interested in K teaching, should I draw a circle around my residence? Will I and any others who reside with me gain protection? What would we be protected from?

If this is not a teaching, why not? It is something he did.

How does this relate to the important question of self? On the surface, it seems that concern for protection boosts the self, boosts division. Drawing a circle is division, isn't it? So is this activity at odds with K teaching?

Here are some of my own thoughts (yes, thoughts, god forbid) to get the conversation started.

Drawing circles was not a public teaching but was something K did in private. Nevertheless, it is certainly something that can be investigated.

K was extraordinarily sensitive. Sensitive to what? Well, for one thing to people. And most people have quite a bit of interior conflict. I believe it could be quite tiring for K to be exposed to the non-stop inner and outer violence of people. So he would take retreat. He would take walks in nature, alone or with a close friend or two. He would rest.

In addition, K was raised in Theosophy to be sensitive to various occult phenomena. Something like astral travel to the Masters, to me, likely involved imagination and taking that imagined experience as real. It would not be surprising if he felt that there were good and evil spirits, and possibly this came from occult training. In fact, in Mary Z's book he seemed to feel that since he was doing important work for good that he was a particular target for bad entities. To me, there are no masters, no spirits, no psychic entities. Experiencing them is just projection. As far as I know, K never did repudiate masters, spirits, or psychic entities. He very likely considered them to be real.

To me, this is just weird stuff K believed, either under the influence of his upbringing, or that he arrived at on his own, or both.

It is reasonable to take care of your practical necessities, like food, shelter, etc. Such activity is, in a way, selfish but also necessary. But creating psychic shelter is, to me, superstition, and unnecessary.

Ken D wrote:The past is not simply memory or recollection. Your body houses so many years of biological living. If you've taken drugs or drank in excess, the body reflects those activities at this very moment. If the past no longer exists and is irrelevant to the present moment, then why must there must be freedom from the known?

Ken,

The physical consequences of past abuses are a fact in the now. The intellect may or may not know the past behaviours which caused today’s consequences, but whether or not it knows, the biological consequences are now. The intellect may think things like, “if only I hadn’t done that”, but that thinking, its dwelling on those memories, IS the psychological past.